f- 



A SPEECH 



DRLITEREO AT 



A\rEBSTii:ii, ]m:a.ss.. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I., NASHUA, N. H., AND OTHER PLACES, DURING THE PRESI- 
DENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1856, IN SUPPORT OF 



JAMES BUCHANAN, 



GEORGE B. LORING, 

OF SALEI^I. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE DEMOCRATIC TOWN 
COMMITTEE OF WEBSTER. 



PllINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE BOSTON POST. 

185G. 




^tA 



S?_4 I 4, 



SPEECH. 



Democrats : 

I beg leave to ackno^ylcclgc the honor you have conferred upon 
me, in inviting me to address you. It is indeed an honor to be called upon 
to address the citizens of this free Republic, now that the time has arrived 
which Washington foresaw, against which Jefferson endeavored to strengthen 
}is, to avert which Jackson struggled with all his mighty energies. And no 
man. be he high or low, rich or poor, wise or simple, who reveres the names 
of these great men, and loves his country and the institutions of freedom 
which they transmitted, has a right to keep silence when called upon to 
speak. The voices of the dead — of those who fell on the battle-fields of the 
Eevolution fighting for the constitutional freedom which we enjoy, and of 
those who wore out their lives in the harder service of the council chamber 
to teach the world what that freedom is, call upon us to be true to the trust 
they imposed upon us. The voices of the living — of those who enjoy the 
inheritance of freedom, and feel every day and hour what it is to walk abroad 
in the majesty of independent citizenship, implore us to defend and preserve 
the great immunities which they possess. The voices of posterity — of those 
whose prosperity and happiness, whose moral, religious, and intellectual ele- 
vation depend upon the civil institutions which they inherit from our hands 
— plead with us to be regardful of them as well as true to ourselves. And 
the voice of every man struggling to be free, urges upon us the sacred duty 
of preserving in all its strength and purity this great experiment of govern- 
ment, now first promulgated, and containing all that wisdom which must 
exist wherever true republicanism would be established, and the absence of 
which has marked the pages of history with the vain attempt of nations to 
throw off the yoke of despotism, or to resist the encroachments of usurpa- 
tion and tyranny. 

The foundation of this experiment. Democrats, is the great principle of 
SELF-G0VERN5IENT, a principle which lay deep in the hearts of the fathers of 
the Republic, and which has been sustained and defended by our party, from 
the formation of the Constitution to this very hour, in opposition to all the 
ingenuity of those who have no faith in the people, and who believe in mak- 
ing men virtuous, happy and prosperous by the application of restrictions 
imposed by a superior power. Even among us the believers in monarchical 
rule, and in the efficacy of an overshadowing central power did not all die, 
when the independence of these colonies was declared, and they are not all 
dead yet. And the American Democracy of all men on the face of the earth 
are the only ones who have been true to this principle which underlies our 
government, and makes us a people free indeed. 



And do you ask me what I mean by self-government? I mean the right 
of the people, in their sovereign capacity, to enact their own laws and estab- 
lish their own institutions. I mean the right of every State to regulate its 
own domestic concerns according to the interests of its citizens, who are sup- 
posed to know better than the stranger what will most conduce to its moral 
elevation, and its practical success. I mean the right of every county to 
conduct its own affairs in the way most accordant with the wishes of its in- 
habitants. I mean the right of every town, of those "little democracies," 
from whose sturdy and vigorous heart sprang the first impulse which made 
us a free people, to manage their own municipal matters in their own way. 
I mean the right of every man to make the sacredness of his hearthstone 
known by the free exercise of his own wisdom in domestic control, and by 
the enjoyment of the highest of all man's blessings — freedom of conscience. 
Self-government distributes those powers which have always clustered around 
the throne, and have emanated from thence, out to the remotest civil organi- 
zations, making the people the source and not the recipients of all civil pre- 
rogative. Under our form of government, the very existence of a State 
depends upon the powers relinquished by the towns and bestowed for mutual 
safety and convenience upon the Commonwealth. The very existence of our 
Union grows out of the fact that the States have consented to intrust certain 
of their interests into the hands of a central power, for the confirmation and 
defence of those which are reserved, and which constitute the true vitality of 
the State. Each member of this confederation claims and enjoys the right to 
enact its own laws, to establish its own school system, to suppress and punish 
crime in its own way, to build up its own institutions, to adopt such civil re- 
lations as seem most satisfactory and beneficial to its people. And it has the 
privilege moreover of conferring upon its population the dignity and honor 
which belong to a powerful nation, by entering upon a partnership whose 
emblem is the American flag, and whose profit is the distinction which an 
American citizen enjoys among all the nations of the earth. 

Let every Democrat remember that in each of the ten thousand towns in this 
Union, rests a power superior to presidents, cabinets, and congresses — a power 
without the support of which all the higher branches of government would 
instantly fall in pieces. And the great merit of our success thus far is that 
the citizens of each town and county and state are considered wiser in their 
own affairs, than the wisest statesman in the land, who is removed far away 
from them. The genius which presided at the formation of our Constitution, 
tore asunder all centralization of colossal powers, and cast the fragments abroad 
into the hands of the people, from which they are now conferred in this Ee- 
public, and to which no power on earth is great enough to grant them. 

And to this principle in its fullest and largest sense, the Democratic party 
has always been true. You need not be told that when Jefferson the great 
apostle of democracy came into power he was victorious over the foes of this 
principle, over those who endeavored before the Constitution was adopted to 
crush the individual power of the States, and who endeavored after the Consti- 
tution was adopted to convert it into a great central engine of power, as the 
republican party is now doing. You need not be told that, in 1820, when the 
rights of the States were fully discussed, the Democratic party insisted on re- 
cognizing those rights, let the issue be what it might. You cannot have for- 
gotten the conscientious observance of these rights which actuated the course 
of Jackson, even when he saw the disposition of one member of the confedera- 
tion to violate the great principle of our government, by abusing the power 



which it bestows. When, iu 1850, the guardianship of our institutions rested 
in the hands of a party opposed to us. when the temptations of power were not 
held up to us, with what alacrity did the Democracy of this Union rally iu de- 
fence of those acts which once more confirmed the sovereign relations main- 
tained by the States to the general government, and how joyfully did they 
take the great defender of the constitution by the liand when northern fana- 
ticism stood arrayed against him. From the resolutions of '08, and the re- 
petition of them by Virginia in 1820, down through the Baltimore platforms, 
to the last declaration of Democratic truth at Cincinnati, we have as a party 
stood upon this doctrine. And when iu establisliing the territorial govern- 
ments of Kansas and Nebraska, the Democratic statesmen of our own time 
looked back, they found that the constitution, the time-honored faith of the 
party, the truths laid down by J efforson, and Madison, and Jackson, and Silas 
AVright, the legislation with regard to territories formed in 1850, the plat- 
form upon which they stood when Franklin Tierce was elected in 1852, all 
demanded that the people of those territories should stand on an equal footing 
with the rest of the Union ; and thus it was, that in face of the wildest storm 
that ever burst under the political heavens, surrounded by the abuse of fac- 
tionists, and the timid councils of the doubting, the immortal words were in- 
troduced into the Nebraska bill, which declare : — 

"It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery 
into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the 
people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States." 

I look upon this declaration as an era in the progress of popular freedom 
throughout the world. 

It is the entire and faithful recognition of this principle which can alone 
protect us against revolution, and prevent the horrors of civil war, or the de- 
gradation of despotism. For while we, as a people, observe the rights of the 
various civil organizations composing the fabric of our government, all sec- 
tional differences upon the rights of property and all social and civil interests, 
must be amicably referred to the highest judicial tribunal, whose decisions con- 
stitute the great law of our confederation. With us revolution is unnecessary. 
We have our remedy for existing evils in the rights confirmed by the consti- 
tution, in the wisdom of the judiciary, and in the sacred power of the ballot- 
box. The sagacity which referred all questions arising out of conflicting 
interests involving the rights of property among the different States and sec- 
tions of our confederation, to the Supreme Court of the United States, thus 
elevating all questions in which passion and prejudice might overthrow rea- 
son and judgment, was that instinctive knowledge of the dangers surrounding 
a free government, which is found in every Democrat, every true lover of con- 
stitutional American freedom as opposed to license and misrule. The 
hand which would strike down this power, and would avail itself of temporary 
impulse to subvert the principles of our government, deserves to be palsied for 
ever. He who claims that a phrenzied north has a right to sit in judgment 
upon the affairs of the south, or he who would rouse a maddened south to enter 
upon a crusade against the north, regardless of the solemn obligations of the 
constitution, and unmindful of the blessings conferred by a judiciary upon an 
honorable people, has a soul iu which true American Democratic freedom 
never had a seat, and whose ambition aims at an elective despotism, or a mi- 
litary dictatorship. No true friend of the people would ever call upon one 
section to dictate the terms of union to another. No true American States- 



6 

luau would ever refer the interests of this confederation, and the rights of the 
States to a popular madness. Xo intelligent and faithful citizen imbued with 
a knowledge of the civil organization under which he lives here, and properly 
grateful for its blessings, would ever allow himself to be led away by appeals 
to all his bitterest and most selfish passions. But to the true philanthropist, 
the true statesman, the true citizen, the arbitration furnished by the consti- 
tution, the equal and exact justice afforded by our government, the common 
bond extended over all by the terms of the confederation, must present the 
highest opportunity, and the most glorious promises for all who would be free. 
The policy which would make the law of one section a law for the whole con- 
federation, is anti-Democratic, unconstitutional, anti-Eepublican. It strikes 
a blow at the judiciary. It threatens the immunities of the people. It assails 
the rights of the States. It elevates the uneasy spirits of busy-bodies and 
meddlers above the sagacity and wisdom of comprehensive statesmanship. 
It substitutes a dictatorship and a despotism for the high constitutional prin- 
ciple of SELF-GOVERNMENT. It would blot from the face of the earth this last 
attempt of the people to govern themselves, the great design which filled the 
minds of Washington and Jefferson, and Madison, and Jackson — and would 
put in its place a realization of the dreams of those who desired to take all 
power from the people and pile it up into one high, overshadowing, central 
structure. 

Let me tell you, Democrats, the whole contest in the present campaign is 
between the advocates of these two opposite views of government. We who 
stand by the constitution and reco^gnize the rights of all under it, stand where 
its great founders and defenders stood. We are no propagandists, no crusaders. 
We only ask that freedom on this continent should manifest itself in a system 
of government, whose guarantees and obligations and rights know no distinc- 
tions, no dividing line. We would advocate the superior claims of no section. 
And we sustain the constitution as containing within itself a remedy for those 
evils which now hang like a dark cloud over our land, and which have arisen 
from a disposition to violate that principle of government upon which the 
American people must rest, if they would be free and prosperous. In this 
conflict. Democrats and defenders of the constitution as it is, are on one side — 
sectionalists, fanatics, revolutionists and " designing men" on the other. This 
is most true. I will lay the case plainly before you and leave you to judge, 

I have said that all our troubles at the present time arise from an attempt 
to VIOLATE the PRINCIPLE of SELP-GovERNMENT to be found in the constitution. 
I refer of course to the troubles in Kansas. Had the people of that territory 
been allowed to control their own aff"airs, without foreign interference, accord- 
ing to the doctrine of the Democratic party, all the " bloody outrages," and 
" martyrs to freedom," and " border rufiians," and " Topeka constitutions" 
and " invasions," and sieges and battles would never have been heard of. The 
storm which now darkens our political heavens and makes Kansas a by-word 
and a hissing among the nations, began in that little cloud, no bigger than a 
man's hand, far off on the horizon, and which, rising higher and higher, was 
found to be surcharged with treason, sedition, opposition to the constitution, 
and the dark fell spirit of revolution and civil war. Upon the devoted head 
of Kansas has been let loose all the restless and defiant spirit which has 
struggled in vain to find its opportunity in our confederation. And the out- 
rages in Kansas are simply a miniature of what might be expected everywhere, 
were the opponents of the constitution and the true intention of our Union to 
prevail. The difficulties which have existed in that territory arose from a de- 



termination on the part uf the opponents of the doctrine of jwpular sove- 
reignty, to destroy the efteet of the net organising the territory. Not in the 
north alone — but nortli and south tlie will of the people was interfered with 
by deliberate and prc-dctermiued combinations for that purpose. The work 
indeed began here, gentlemen, here in Massachusetts, at the hands of those 
who have always placed sectional passion high above reason and patriotism ; 
and the resistance to the work arose in i\Iissouri, where the blow struck 
against the people's rights was destined iirst to fall. I have not a word to say 
in defence of those who committed the outrages, let their provocation be what 
it may. But looking behind and beyond the acts themselves, I desire to 
expose the origin of all these difficulties. AVe need not go to Missouri for that. 
It lies here at our very doors. And when an attempt was made to engraft 
the politics of ^Massachusetts upon Kansas, by means of Emigrant Aid So- 
cieties, the madness of propagandism commenced that work at which huma- 
nity stands appalled, and freedom trembles. 

Here lies the difficulty. It is true, that the officers of! the Massachusetts 
Emigrant Aid Society issued a declaration to the people of Missouri in Sep- 
tember, IS").}, stating that their mission was one of peace — that they only 
desired to build mills, and hotels, and churches, and advance the cause of 
civilization in the territory — that they had no political designs — that they 
were the most innocent of all men living — no lion at all, but simply Snug 
the Joiner. But unfortunately for this declaration, in ]\Iarch previous, Mr. 
Lawrence, one of the highest of these officers, wrote to Mr. Atchison of Mis- 
souri, saying that the contest in Kansas was between freedom and slavery, 
and that the free State people, being the weaker, asked for a little leniency 
in the contest. It was a '"free fair fight" which they were engaged in. 
And when we look upon the chief actors in this Emigrant Aid drama in 
Kansas, when we see the course pursued by those very men who went 
there under Massachusetts auspices, can we doubt for one moment, which 
document contained the truth — the declaration to the people of Missouri, 
or Mr. Lawrence's letter to Mr. Atchison ? Yes, Democrats, the whole object 
of this movement in Massachusetts was to cast odium upon the constitu- 
tional principle of self-government and popular sovereignty. And when the 
violations commenced, these " friends of freedom," these sham Kepublicans, 
true to the teachings and example of their legitimate ancestors, taunted us 
Democrats with the result of our experiment in Kansas. They sneeringly 
asked — " is this a specimen of your popular sovereignty ?" They violated 
the law, and then reproached the law that it was capable of violation. They 
converted freedom into anarchy and license, and then charged freedom with 
being guilty of their sins. Not for the first time in the history of our coun- 
try did they do this — these enemies of everything truly Eepublican, truly 
Democratic, truly free, truly devoted to the interests of the people. Not for 
the first time when troubles arose in Kansas were the friends of constitu- 
tional freedom, and popular sovereignty on this continent, sneered at for the 
difficulties they encountered in the great work of humanity. Before the 
constitution was adopted, when the glories of the revolution were still undim- 
med before the eyes of the people, wlien liberty was yet young here, and the 
true value of the great boon which had been obtained at a painful expense, 
an insurrection broke out in Massachusetts, which threatened to involve the 
whole country in anarchy and confusion, and which was stayed only by the 
resolution and wisdom of the discreet and wise Gov. Bowdoin. And then 
were found in those days, tories and royalists, and despisers of the people 



and unbelievers in popular sovereignty, and advocates of elective dictators 
and military despots, who pointed scornfully to the rebellion, and taunted 
the self-sacrificing patriots and heroes of that day with having labored for a 
delusion and a snare, when they struck a blow for popular rights. It was 
indeed the Republicans and abolitionists and secessionists, and agitators of 
that day who laughed the believers in Democracy to scorn, because dema- 
gogues misled the people, and cast reproaches upon popular freedom — that 
dream of sages and philanthropists, realized only when our constitution was 
adopted. And shall Democrats be driven from their faith by such taunts 
as these ? Shall we who stand by the constitution have our faith shaken 
because in the magnanimity and leniency of its greatness it affords all free- 
men the opportunity to violate its obligations, and to abuse its privileges. 
It is because this constitution exists that these violators find a standing 
place. It is because Democrats have preserved the doctrine of self-govern- 
ment, in all its benign liberality, that the citizens of a free Eepublic are 
allowed to proceed to the very verge of treason, aye to dabble in its dark 
waters without swift and speedy punishment. Had the rioters in Kansas 
lived under the Monarchical rule of England, which they seem to love so 
much, to-morrow's sun would have lighted them on their journey to Botany 
•Bay. Had they been subjects of the Czar, they would long ago have found them- 
selves digging gold in Siberia with their treasonable ardor cooling in a temp- 
erature of one hundred degrees below zero. It is because this country is 
free as Democrats have made it — it is because the constitution extends its 
blessings over all, filled with the spirit of Democracy — it is because the 
dictation of abolitionists and the aggressions of agitators have never reached 
the summit of power here — it is because the Democratic party has preserved 
in all its purity, freedom as it was established by the sword of the revolu- 
tion and the constitution as it fell from the hands of its founders, that these 
gross outrages are suffered to exist, and are met in the outset by confident 
appeals to the wisdom, virtue and patriotism of the people. Let those who 
sin against the true spirit of popular freedom, and run riot in its calm and 
all embracing presence, remember that its decrees are inevitable, and that 
its law cannot be violated with impunity. 

I have said, gentlemen, that the troubles in Kansas arose out of an 
attempt to engraft the politics of Massachusetts upon that territory. The 
sectional politicians of our own State endeavored to transplant the tone and 
sentiment which prevails here upon the soil of Kansas. And is this a work 
in which Democrats should be ever tempted to engage ? The enterprise of 
Massachusetts, her commerce whitening every sea, her thriving villages dot- 
ting all her landscape, her populous cities swelling with busy life, her 
engines shaking the solid earth, her industry which vexes the soil and chains 
the waters, and explores the secrets of the great globe itself, her schools and 
churches, her colleges and her educated men, her high position in the world 
of science and art, and literature and commerce and agriculture, and manu- 
factures, all fill me with respect and admiration. But when she attempts to 
carry the political spirit which has marked her career into other sections 
of our land, I cannot resist the spontaneous protest which rises to my lips. 
I cannot forget that it was her representative who stood up in Congress to 
impeach 'J'homas Jefferson because he was true to that faith which we now 
adore and which no man in this country dares to oppose. I cannot forget 
that when the Democrats of my own district, the hardy and patriotic sons of 
Marblchead poured out their blood like water, and forsook their homes until 



the old town was almost deserted, that we might have honor and power as a 
nation on the sea and on the land, baptisin<!; your navy in their blood — 1 
cannot forget, I say, that when IX^nocrats of .Massachusetts were tlms enga- 
ged, the Federalists of that day, the IJepuldieans of this, denounced the war 
as unbecoming a moral and religious people. I cainiot forget that it was a 
rcprescutativo of ^fassachusctts, whose sentiments were so atrocious in that 
trying hour, that the patriotic Clay ])roclaimed him a man who "soiled the 
carpet on which he stood." I cannot forget that the pulpit of Massachusetts 
led on by the Osgoods and Parishes of that day, set an example to the three 
thousand partizan priests who in our own time impiously dare to prote-t " in 
the name of Almighty God" against the adoption of a Democratic principle 
in the Government of the American people, and violate their sacred obliga- 
tions, and abuse their position, by converting their pulpits into rostrums, 
and by inflaming a people^ already mad with passion, instead of preaching 
"peace on earth and good will to men." I cannot forget that it was a Mas- 
sachusetts Senator who in the great debate upon the J\Iissouri question in 
1820. broke down every principle belonging to our government, and gave his 
influence for a dictatorship, by dccbiring that " if the constitution is not 
strong enough to restrict slavery, we will make it strong enough." I cannot 
forget that Massachusetts has set herself in nullifying opposition to the gene- 
ral government. And when I am told that the freemen of Massachusetts 
are going to Kansas to make her free also, it indeed appears to me that they 
had better first learn what it is to be free at home. I ask you, Democrats of 
Massachusetts, if it would tempt you to go to Kansas to be told that you 
would find the same political spirit prevailing there, which you find here at 
home. The picture presented by our own statute book is enough to appal 
the stoutest heart which beats with true love of freedom. It is here on our 
own soil, where the peculiar " friends of freedom" shriek thcloudest for their 
cause, that wc find ourselves oppressed by a law more restrictive, more dicta- 
torial, more unconstitutional, more unjust, more anti-democratic, than any 
law however obnoxious which disgraces the statute-book of Kansas — a law 
which ignores all sense of morality and freedom in the community, which 
opens the doors of our jails and houses of correction to close them again upon 
the simplest acts of kindness and charity, and places the exercise of free 
rights and liberality on a level with felony and crime. And the very advo- 
cates of this law are loudest in their talk about "freedom in Kansas." It 
is here, in Massachusetts, that the gates of freedom are shut against those 
who come from other lands hoping to find in America what they longed 
for in vain at home — and the act of naturalization is made burdensome 
and expensive through a spirit of exclusivcness, bitterness and arrogance. 
It is here, in this State of ]\lassachusetts. that a legislature dares to nullify 
a constitutional act of Congress, to proscribe those officers of the law who 
sustain it, and to deprive those who obey its enactments of the highest rights 
of citizenship — as if citizenship was a gift at its hands. And the advocates 
of this law dare to complain of obnoxious laws in Kansas. It is here, that 
we meet in its severest forms hatred of race and sect, and here that the sanc- 
tity of the domestic hearth is violated by a legislature composed almost en- 
tirely of these peculiar " friends of freedom." And when wc Democrats call 
upon the party in power to relieve us of the burdens which rest npon us. all 
the reply we get is — " Kansas shall be free." Is this any comfort or conso- 
lation to us ? I want to be free in Massachusetts. I desire to know that 
freedom spreads its ample wings over me on my native soil ; and when I ask 
2 



10 

for freedom here, it is uo satisfactiou tu be told that I can iiiid it faron to- 
wards the western sun. I have no desire to cross the Mississippi Kiver in 
search of that freedom which ought to fill our whole laud. If the politics and 
priucijdes of the ruling party in Massachusetts are to shape the civil institu- 
tions of Kansas — if the sectional bitterness and narrow miudedness which op- 
press us here are to be carried there — if the self-righteousness which inspires 
the efforts in behalf of what they call freedom in Massachusetts, is to hang 
like a pall over Kansas — if that utter disregard of our obligations as a State 
is to lie at the foundation of the State of Kansas. I should like to ask what 
freeman would ever desire to become a citizen of that territory, or what lover 
of his country would desire to see such a State added to our Union '? We, 
who call ourselves Democrats, are engaged in a better work than the extension 
of such principles as these.- We do indeed mean that Kansas shall be free — 
free, as any other State in this Union is free — free, according to the sense of 
freedom which filled the minds of Washington, and Jefferson, and Jackson — 
free, as the constitution would make us free — free, as the Democratic party 
v.'ould make the whole American people free — free, in the enjoyment of those 
rights and privileges which are protected by that principle of government 
which recognises the power of the people '■ to regulate their own affairs in their 
own way." And we pray to God that that freedom which is dispensed by 
abolitionists, that freedom which sits above the treasonable conclaves plotting 
against the constitution, that freedom which consists in arming a people with 
Sharpe's rifles for purposes of civil war, that freedom which joins one hand 
with religious bigotry and fanaticism and joins the other with infidelity and 
atheistic license, that freedom whose career is marked by dissension and blood- 
shed, and whose end is civil war and a military dictatorship, we pray to God 
that such freedom as this may be confined to the councils of republicanism, 
may be entrusted to the care of the Greeleys and Wilsons, and Garrisons, and 
Bankscs, and Parkers, and Beechers, and, if you will have it so, may be the 
special property of the Emigrant Aid Society of Massachusetts. Democrats, 
and a free people would have none of it. 

It is entirely unnecessary, gentlemen, that I should deal in detail with the 
story of outrages in Kansas. You have had them held up before your eyes with 
the first streak of dawn, and they have pursued you into the hours of darkness. 
We have indeed " supped full of honors" and breakfasted and dined upon 
" bloody wrongs" and dreamed about them until the whole air is thick with them. 
It is entirely unnecessary to expose the inconsistencies and dishonesty of Gov. 
Reeder — every man, even he who " runs may read" the story. The efforts of 
the United States ofBcers to keep the peace in Kansas, and the determined and 
indefatigable efforts of the opponents of the administration and of the democratic 
party, have become matters of history. The peaceful efforts of Gen. Smith, and 
Col. Sumner, and Gov. Geary, are before us as the work of the administration — 
the farce at Topeka, the action of Gov. Robinson, and the horde of wretches 
picked by Gen. Lane from the streets and cellars of Chicago, present themselves 
to us as the operations of those wbo profanely and impudently call themselves 
free state men. I desire to have you fairly consider the contrast which is have 
presented. We who would sustain the authority of the federal government in 
Kansas, who would have the territorial legislature and the territorial ofEcers re- 
spected, who would protect the ballot box, and find a remedy for laws pronounced 
unconstitutional by the judicial authority of the territory, desire above all things, 
peace in that unhappy community. And for that we have labored. While the 
rei)ublican party in Congresss and out of it has been engaged in fomenting the 



11- 

strife ia Kansas ; wbile tho correspondent of tlie N. Y. Tiinc^, has been writing — 
" You must keep up this Kansas excitement. It is the onhj element of success 
to the republican partij in the cominrf Presidential contest ;''^ while Dr. 
Cutter, one of their lecturers on " blcodinni; Kansas" has jiroclaimed — " Jf you 
would carry the election next November, keep bloody outrayes in Kansas before 
the eyes of the people. You have no other plank. Settle this question and you 
are defeated ; " while the oflicers in what they call tlieir free state army, have 
been eniploj'ed " to remain in Kansas till after the election ; " while every ef- 
fort has been made by the republican leaders to madden the people by extrava- 
gant stories of wronj^js — it is cheering and gratifying to turn to tho action of the 
democratic party in this crisis. 

"We may well thank heaven that at this tinie tho destinies of our country are 
guided by a democratic President. The sagacity and courage and devotion to 
the Constitution and the Union, the keen appreciation of the true intent and 
meaning of our confederation, which have marked tho career of President 
Pierce, have at no time been more fully displayed than in his course with regard 
to the difficulties in Kansas. Our opponents complain that he did not in hot 
haste sent the U. S troops, without even a requisition from the governor of the 
territory, to suppress troubles, one half of which originated in their own brains. 
They complain that he did not spread martial law over the territory. They have 
called on him to preserve peace there, by aiding them in a war of extermination 
against their opponents. But to the Chief Magistrate of this free republic, to a 
democratic statesman born in the democratic air of New Hampshire and bred 
by her mountain airs into the firmness of her granite foundations, neither the 
constitution, nor the rights of the people furnish any such course of action. He 
appealed to the people as his great guide and predecessor Jackson had done be- 
fore him, to obey the laws and to regard the institutions under which they lived. 
He appealed too to Congress. And while a republican horde of repre.'^entatives, 
a majority of whom claimed to have been sent there by the uprising spirit of free- 
dom among the people, were wasting their time and the people's money in elevat- 
ing Mr. N. P. Baidcs, a northern amalgamationist and abolitionist, to the speak- 
er's chair, and Mr. Cullora a slaveholder to the clerkship of the house, while this 
republican party were wrangling and striving over the spoils of office, regardless 
of the great interests of their country, President Pierce issued his Message on 
the 20th of January in which he laid the troubles in Kansas before Congress 
with the hope and expectation that some relief would be provided by that' body. 
Afain on the llth of February following, he sent forth his proclamation, in which 
he called upon the people of the several states to regard the rights of the people 
of Kansa? and to leave them unmolested. He .'^ays : — 

" And if the territory be invaded by the citizens of other states, whether for 
the purpose of deciding elections, or for any other, and the local authorities find 
themselves unable to repel or withstand it, they will be entitled to, and upon the 
fact being fully ascertained, they shall most certainly receive the aid of the gen- 
eral government. 

It is the undoubted right of the peaceble and orderly people of the territory 
of Kansas to elect their own legislative body, make their own laws, and regulate, 
their own social institutions, without foreign or domestic molestation. 

Entertaining these views, it will be my imperative duty to exert the whole 
power of the federal executive to support public order in the territory ; to vindi- 
cate its laws, whether federal or local, against all attempts of organized resist- 
ance ; and so to protect its people in the establishment of their in.'stitutions,. un- 
disturbed from encroachment from within, and in the full enjoyment of the right.s 



12 

of self-government assured to them by the constitution and the orgain act of Con- 
gress." 

These are the words of your democratic President, gentlemen — words which 
will form a part of the history of your country's policy, when the misrepresenta. 
tions, and quarrels, and false appeals of republicanism shall have all been 
forgotten. 

Not content with this the President sends his most reliable army-officers into 
the territory to keep the peace there. Col. Sumner and Gen. Smith, officers 
who may never shrink from a comparison with the Lanes and Browns and Rob- 
insons of the republican army of invaders, were entrusted with the duty of obey- 
ing the requisition of Gov. Shannon and Gov. Geary. Of the mission of Col. 
Sumner, even the N. Y. Tribune, that sink of all infidelity and treason, that dis- 
seminator of every false doctrine and every absurd system, that defender of free- 
love, and all the destructive and agrarian doctrines of abolitionism and republic- 
anism in every form, even this sheet, opposed as it is to everything democratic, 
unjust as it is to all democratic statesmen, declared that: — " To repress the bor- 
der ruffians and keep them at home, we believe to be the real object of the or- 
ders lately sent to Colonel Sumner to act on the requisition of Gov. Shannon." 

So much for the position of the President. In every act he has been govern- 
ed by a solemn sense of his obligations as Chief Magistrate of this republic, and 
by a true regard for the rights of the people as secured to them by the Constitu- 
tion. 

A Democratic Senate too — what was this body doing in this crisis, while a re- 
publican House was " shrieking for freedom" and quarrelling over the spoils of 
office. Time after time bills were sent down to the House furnishing relief for 
Kansas, and providing for her admission into the Union as a state — and time 
after time were these bills rejected by the House. They sat complaining of the 
obnoxious laws in Kansas, these " friends of freedom" did, and not a step did 
they take towards repealing those laws. It remained for the Senate to do this. 
You have been told by republican editors, by those who deal in wholesale and 
false denunciation of the Democratic Party and its statesmen, by those who are 
pleased to talk about the firm of " Douglas, Atchison, Pierce, Stringfellow & 
Co.," you have been told also by republican lecturers and republican orators, the 
Senate bill furnished no repeal for the obnoxious laws. But how stands the re- 
cord ? Let me read those laws to you that there may be no mistake in this matter. 
They are black enough, God knows — black enough to satisfy the republican 
legislature and party of Massachusetts — but not black enough to rouse a repub- 
lican House of Eepresentatives to a sense of their duty, while they had the 
spoils of office to quarrel over. It remained for a Democratic Party true to its 
Democratic faith to expose and repeal the laws. 

The first of the laws which I shall read is that passed by the Legislature of 
Kansas requiring every civil officer to take the following oath, viz : — 

-, do solemnly swear upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, that I 



■will support the Constitution of the United States, and that I will support and sustain 
the provisions of an act entitled, ' An Act to organize the Territory of Nebraska and 
Kansas,' and the provisions of the law of the U. States, commonly known as the ' Fugi- 
■ tive Slave Law,' and faithfully and impartially and to the best of my ability demean 
myself in the discharge of my duties in the office of ; so help me God ! " 

This law requiring a test oath would not, oue would suppose, have troubled 
the consciences of your Bankses and Burlingames, and Halls, and Traftons, 
representatives seut to Congress from the garrets and cellars and rat-holes of 
know-nothingisra. But they found that this test oath business works both 



13 

ways, and they Legan to believe that the Democratic opposition to sucli oaths 
was just and well founded ; and they left it for a Democratic Senate to repeal 
the law. 

The second law, classed among the obnoxious laws of Kansas, provides: — 

" That if any person oftcrin^ to vote shall bo challengcil and required to take an oath 
or affirmation, to be administered by one of thejiidj^cs of the election, that he will hus- 
tain the provisions of the above recited acts of Congress, (acts relating to the rendition 
of fugitive slaves,) and of tlie Act entitled, ' An Act to organize tiie Territories of Ne- 
braska and Kansas, approved May .iOth, iM'i^, and shall refuse to take such oath or 
affirmation, the vote of such person shall be rejected." 

To every Democrat this law appears oppressive, unconstitutional, anti- 
Democratic ; and a Democratic Senate repealed it. The " friends of freedom" 
in the house were engaged in other business, as I will soon show you. 

The third law which they denounce as arbitrary and unconstitutional, de- 
clares that : — 

" If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or maintain that persons 
have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall introduce into this Territory, 
print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced into this Territory, written, 
printed, published, or circulated in this Territory, any book, pa])C'r, magazine, pamphlet 
or circular containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this Terri- 
tory, such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at 
hard labor for a term not less than two years." 

This law, violating freedom of speech and of the press, was repealed by a 
Democratic Senate, as an outrage upon our institutions. The know-nothing 
" friends of freedom" in the house, could much better bear this gag law, ac- 
customed as they were to civil and political proscription, than they could any 
interference with their schemes of plunder. They had their own peculiar way 
of serving the cause of freedom as we shall see hereafter. 

They tell you that a Democratic Senate did not repeal these laws. Let me 
read the record. In the Senate bill denominated Toombs's bill, brought for- 
ward by that distinguished Senator and Statesman from the South, occur the 
following provisions, viz : — * 

" No law shall be in force or enforced in said Territory, respecting an establishment 
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech 
or of the press." 

" No law shall be made or have force or effect in said Territory which shall require a 
test oath, or oath to support any act of Congress, or other legislative act, as a (|ualifi- 
cation for any employment or profession, or to serve as a juror or vote at an election, 
or which shall impose any tax upon or condition to the exercise of the riglit of suffrage 
by any qualified voter, or shall restrain or prohibit the free discussion of any law or 
subject of legislation in said Territory, or the free expression of opinion thereon by 
the people of said Territory." 

Is not this a repeal ? Does not the Senate by these provisions abrogate 
those laws of which republicans complain, on account of which they called 
together the Topeka convention, and which have furnished them their alleged 
ground for all their riot and bloodshed in Kansas ? True, the bill does not 
substitute one arbitrary code for another. It does not remove one set of op- 
pressive laws, by enacting another still more oppressive. It does not attempt 
to serve the cause of freedom by crushing out all freedom. This remained for 
a republican party, a party whose deeds require that they should placard 
themselves " friends of freedom," that men may not judge them to be lovers of 
tyranny, a party which endeavors to atone for its sins by its professions of 



14 

virtue, a party to whose proceedings on this Kansas matter in the house of 
representatives, I now wish to call your attention. 

After the election of Mr. Speaker Banks, and their other little arrange- 
ments with regard to office, after months spent in preparing capital for the 
Presidential campaign, the republican house of representatives undertook to 
legislate for Kansas. And such legislation ! AVhy, gentlemen, with the name 
of freedom written on their frontlets they committed deeds which would make 
a tyrant blush. It seems as if unconsciously and spontaneously, with an im- 
pulsive obedience to the spirit which lies around the breast of this arrogant 
and self-righteous republican movement, they wei'C driven to an exposure of 
their true character, and were compelled by an inexorable fate to show how 
heaven-wide is the difference between Democratic, American, constitutional 
freedom, and that spurious stuff which undertakes to hide its deformity under 
a fair name. These men talk about the pro-slavery designs of the Democratic 
party, and the determination of that party to legislate slavery into the ter- 
ritories ! Why it remained for them, these peculiar friends of freedom, to set 
the first example in assuming the right of Congress not only to legislate for 
the people of the territories, but more than all to legislate slavery into the 
territories. The thing seems incredible — and yet we have the record. After 
rejecting every bill and every proposition for the honorable and just pacifica- 
tion of Kansas, they adopted their own way to serve the cause of freedom. 
In the bill presented to the house by Mr. Dunn of Indiana, a member of the 
republican party, it was provided first that the criminal code of Kansas should 
be repealed. Murder, rapine, arson, were to go unpunished — the criminals were 
to be set free — the friends of freedom in that territory were to be provided first 
and foremost with the freedom of licentiousness — for the special benefit of free 
state men, immunity for crime was the peculiar work of this republican house of 
representatives. And, having thus provided for their friends, they proceed to 
establish a code for regulating the institutions of the territory. In the 24th 
section of the bill referred to, after having proposed to restore the Missouri Com- 
promise, they provide : — 

" That any person lawfully held to service in either of said territories shall 
not be discharged from such service by reason of such repeal and revival of said 
eighth section, if such person shall ba permanently removed from said territory 
or territories prior to the first day of January. 1858 ; and any child or children 
born in either of said territories, of any femlae lawfully held to service, if in like 
manner removed without said territories, before the expiration of that date, shall 
not be, by reason of anything in this act, emancipated from any service it might 
have owed had this act never been passed." 

Eead this, citizens of a free republic, and learn the mission of these pretended 
friends of freedom and humanity, these martyrs in the cause of liberty, these mod- 
ern republicans ! Why, the Democratic Party, the border-ruflians of this Kansas 
excitement, the enslavers of the human race in this new philanthropic movement, 
declare as the very foundation of their platform that Congress has no right to 
legislate slavery into a territory now free — that the people alone have the right to 
settle such matters for themselves in their own way ; and the Democratic Party 
has always been true to this principle ; — for it belongs to that great doctrine of 
self-government of which I have spoken, it forms the basis of popular sovereign- 
ty in its most ample significance, it is part and parcel of the great charter under 
which we live, and as such is the peculiar property of thS Democratic Party. No 
man ever claimed such power for Congress. No man ever granted it, until these 
axlvocatcs of tjie very monstrosity of interference arose. Whore they will end. 



16 

heaven only knows. And they, who would force slavery into Kansas, and en- 
chain the very children in the streets, violating the c()n.>-titution, and violating 
every sense of justice, north and soiUli, call us border-rufliaiis, and (old their 
arms complacently across their breast, as above all men most true to freedom ! 

And, gentlemen, do you remember who incited the mob in the city of IJoston 
to assault and murder the otlicers of the law in the very precincLs of the courts, 
while they themselves took shelter from the storm their treasonable and bloody 
"Yords had raised ? Do you remember who drove the jjcojile to such madness 
that they rejoiced in the murder of ]Jaclielder ? Do you remendicr who arraigned 
the state of Massachusetts against the coidederation, and, under the name of a 
" personal liberty bill," nulliticd a constitutional act of Congress, and assumed 
the right of a legislature to dispense or withhold, at its royal pleasure, that pre- 
rogative which is the birth-right of every free citizen — the right to bo chosen into 
any office in the gift of the people ? ^\ liy, it was these peculiar friends of free- 
dom, who were ready to " deal damnation round the land," and to murder their 
brethren and dissolve the federal Union, because the fugitive slave law was 
faithfully and equitably enforced. And yet, in their legislation for Kansas, the 
fugitive slave law, of all laws on the statute book, is the oliject of their warmest 
affection. They provide particularly for its enforcement in this 2-lth section of 
Dunn's bill. And yet the English language has been exhausted by them in their 
abuse of those who have always recognized its obligations. Is there any honesty, 
any consistency, any honor in these friends of humanity, these friends of freedom, 
these patent republicans ? 

And, now. Democrats, these are the men who charge us with being a pro-slave- 
ry party, a party devoted to southern aggressions. The charge is false in every 
particular. The Democratic Party, as has been said by your distinguished candi- 
date for the vice-presidency, " is neither a pro-slavery party nor an anti-slavery 
party." It is most truly the party of freedom. It has extended the bounds of 
this republic in the face of all opposition, regardless of sectional interest or sec- 
tional clamor. It has recognized the power of our free institutions to regulate 
themselves, to remove all evil by an inherent force of their own, to furnish free- 
dom to all who would come under the ample folds of our national flag. It has 
done this without fear or favor. And while it has done this, and won for our 
country the admiration of the world, while it has established the fact of the power 
of an almost unlimited confederation like ours, to cluster around one temple, wlicre 
freedom is enshrined, its opponents have found no stronger argument against it 
than this pro-slavery charge. This is no new thing — born of this special crisis. 
When Jefferson purchased Louisiana, and gave us that great outlet to the fruits 
of our industry on the south-west, the "friends of freedom" of that day howled 
over the act as a pro-slavery work. And would you relinquish it nowV When 
the war of 1812 was going on, it was a pro-slcvery war. When the Missouri 
Compromise was passed, with the vain hope of quieting the agitation of that day, 
it was a pro-slavery act, and every northern man who voted for it was burnt in 
effigy. When the Democratic Party enlarged and stimulated the commercial 
interests of this country by advocating a reduction of the tariff, it was a pro-sla- 
very outrage. When the Baltimore platform was first promulgated by Silas 
Wright, it was denounced as the machine of slavery propagandists. When the 
Mexican war was fought, giving us a great extent of new territory, and opening 
the golden gates of California, that freedom might come in, it was denounced as 
a pro-slavery war. When the compromises of 1850 were passed, the- old pro- 
slavery cry arose wilder than ever. When, in 1852 the democracy bore Gex. 
PiERCK upon their shoulders to the highest seat on earth, the agitators were livid 



16 

with rago. When the Nebraska act passed, an act dispensing and confirming 
freedom, the yell that rent the air was deafening, as it arose from the pulpits and 
rostrums of these incendiaries. And when we placed James Buchanan upon 
the Cincinnati j)latform, as we would ask our candidate to take his stand upon 
the constitution, why, then. Democrats, their cup was full ; — 

"Then arose as wild a yell. 

As all tlie fiends from heaven that fell, 

Had pealed the banner-cry of hell." 

The pro-slavery charge is not a new one, and is no more fearful now, than it has 
ever been. 

The Democratic Party and souther aggression — this is the alarm-cry. Let us 
see what the Democratic Party and the south have done in this matter. In ex- 
tending the area of our republic, the Democratic Party, (for it has been done 
entirely by this party) has given the non-slaveholding states a majority in the 
house of representatives of fifty three votes. Do you call this the result of a 
pro-slavery policy ? Hardly was the battle of freedom fought before Virginia, 
with a munificence, unheard of before, gave out of her treasures an offering to 
freedom, before which all the gifts of kings and princes sink into insignificance. 
In the fullness of her liberality she bestowed upon this government, the territory 
out of which the great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, were carved 
and dedicated to that freedom bestowed by the American constitution. Do you 
call this an act of southern aggression ? When the purchase of Louisiana was 
made, all that territory lying from the mouth of the Mississippi river, and com- 
posing the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and the territory of 
Kansas, it was transfered to us by a treaty in which a solemn obligation was en- 
tered into by government, that the inhabitants of that vast region should be pro- 
tected in all their existing rights and institutions, as recognized by the govern- 
ment of France. The whole territory was slave territory. Slavery existed there 
by law. And yet, when the Missouri line was drawn through that territory, an 
'act by which the south relinquished its rights in a widely extended area, it was 
southern statesmen who made the offering for the preservation of the peace of the 
Union, with the hope that it might quiet sectional agitation. It was a free and 
liberal and generous act of the south — and yet these agitators talk about southern 
aggression. Is justice fled, that she should find no place at all among those who 
make war upon the Democratic Party and the constitution and the Union ? 

The declarations of southern statesmen come up to disprove the charge. la 
addressing the people of New Hampshire last winter, Mr. Orr of South Carolina 
said : — 

" He desired to talk to the men of New Hampshire respecting the peculiar 
institutions of the south. He did not ask to convince the people of the north 
that slavery is a good institution. He did not ask that slavery should be legis- 
lated by Congress into free territory," (he left it for the peculiar friends of free- 
dom to do that) " and it was a slander upon the south to charge that they desired 
to legislate slavery into free states andterritories. They only asked that the peo- 
ple themselves should decide the question for themselves. The people of Kan- 
sas were more competent to decide it for themselves than the people of New 
Hampshire or South Carolina were to decide it for them." 

That is good sound Democratic doctrine, the doctrine of the constitution, of 
Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, of the Baltimore platform, of James Bu- 
chanan and the Cincinnati platform. 

And what said Mr. Cobb on the same occasion ? He says : — 



17 

"You are told that the south wish to establish slavery in the tonitories. I 
pronounce tliis declaration false, in the name of the south as a Ixuly. T state 
here, as I have in Georgia, and on the floor of Congress, and will state every- 
where, that if the people of Kansas claim admission into the Union as a free 
state, while I have a seat in Congress, I shall cast my vote in favor of its ad- 
mission ; if as a slave state, I shall also vote to make her a member of our con- 
federation." 

Can any man object to this ? Does this look like the aggression of the slave- 
power? AVill our peculiar "friends of freedom" show us by any word or act 
of theirs that they are actuated by a similar liberality, fairness and devotion to 
the true spirit of the constitution ? 

In this pro-slavery charge, and in their attacks npon the Southern portion of 
our confederacy, those men do not even " keep probability in view." Why, I 
remember that Mr. Galloway, a republican representative from Ohio, in the heat 
of his abolition ardor, at a meeting in Portsmouth, N. H. last winter, while the 
distinguished Southern statesmen to whom I have referred, were uttering their 
patriotic sentiments in another part of that State, was pleased to tell his audience 
that no man born in poverty in a Southern State could ever rise to eminence, so 
heavy was the foot of an oppressive institution upon the necks of the people there. 
And he declared that had the poor bobbin-boy, born in the manufactories of 
Waltham, and now holding a seat as Speaker of the House of Kepresentative, 
second only to that of the President, been born in South Carolina, he would have 
I'emained there in his destitution and ignorance to this day. I think, gentlemen, 
the country would have borne such a calamity with becoming patience and resig- 
nation. And, now, I should like to have Mr. Galloway go with me one 
moment to this same South Carolina. I should like to remind him that on the 
17th of March, 1767, there was born in the little village of Waxsaw, in South 
Carolina, of poor Irish emigrant parents, in a mud hovel, a boy so poor 
that it seemed as if life had no bud of promise for him ; and yet he rose from 
that humble condition to take his stand among our statesmen and warriors, 
the foremost of them all, fearless in his defence of his country, true to the consti- 
tution, devoted to Democratic principles and the cause of the peo{)le, illustrious 
in those deeds of greatness which have placed the name of .Jackson high up 
among the pillars of our temple of freedom, and have added one most brilliant 
star to our gallaxy of great men. I leave Mr. Galloway with his hero, and I am 
content to take ours. If he still thinks that the poor boys of South Carolina are 
born without opportunity, let him go to the verdict of the people. It is " design- 
ing men" as Washington calls them, who would use such appeals to pervert and 
madden the people of one section against their brethren in another. 

But, fellow Democrats, what remedy do those our opponents, who charge us 
with being devoted to the extension of slavery and at the same time distinguish 
themselves above all men. North or South, by legislating slavery into the terri- 
tories — what remedy do they propose for the evils which they profess to see ? 
The hopes of their followers must have been broken by their action in Congress 
— is the stand they assume in this present contest any better ? At their con- 
vention in Philadelphia they proclaimed their principles, in rather harsh terms, 
to be freedom in Kansas, opposition to the Democratic party, and the Pacific 
railroad. They indicated their opposition to polygamy in Utah — but consider- 
ing the record of their candidate and ours on the marriage question, we hardly 
think it worth while to discuss that. We, too, go for freedom in Kansas, as I 
have said, the freedom which the constitution guarantees, not that freedom which 
is dis[3ensed by the tender mercies of abolitionists. We cannot join issue with 

3 



18 

them on the Pacific railroad question — for we advocate its construction by all 
constitutional means. The declaration of the republican party of Massachusetts, 
at the AVorcester convention — a convention which satisfied its devotion to free- 
dom by constructing a platform, and leaving it vacant for Gov. Gardner to stand 
upon it if he chose, not daring to present a candidate of their own for fear of 
injuring Mr. Banks' chances for re-election, a convention whose innocent enthu- 
siasm was materially damped by Mr. Henry Wilson's announcement that their 
cause was no spontaneous movement of the people, but the work of wire-pullers 
and jobbers — the declaration of this convention seems to me to embody all that 
these " friends of freedom" propose to do, in concise terms. And what is it? 
Why, after the usual professions of these gentlemen on the subject of slavery, 
they announce that they are " in favor of restoring the action of the government 
to the policy of Washington and Jefferson" and " that the Federal constitution, 
the rights of the States and the Union of the States must and shallhe preserved." 
This is their remedy for existing evils. Are they honest in this ? What does 
all their talk about the " rights of the States," " the Union of the States" and 
the constitution mean ? Their first and last and only demand imperatively made 
that Kansas shall be a free State, whether the people will or not, belies all their 
State-rights professions. Their very convention, in which Mr. Fremont was 
nominated, illustrates their devotion to the Union. In that second edition of 
the Hartford convention, with not a tithe of its talent, but with all its treason 
and sectionalism, not an authorised delegate appeared from fifteen of the States 
of our confederation. The battle-fields of Yorktown and New Orleans and 
King's Mountain were unrepresented there. The sacred spots where repose the 
ashes of Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Jackson, were shut out 
from the confederation as bounded by the black line of those professed lovers of 
the Union. The conspirators, who met there with words of patriotism on their 
lips, looked across the boundary of their own constructing, with hatred, and 
malignity, and sedition rankling at their hearts. They prated impiously about 
the Declaration of Independence, while their hands were busy in tearing down 
the fabric which rests upon that immortal instrument. The very spirit of their 
proceeding was fatal to the Union ; their principles rendered its existence an 
impossibility ; every design of theirs reduced the confederation to an oppressive 
bond, and yet they talk about its preservation. The civility of an executioner 
is nothing to this. 

But beyond all and above all they talk of " restoring the action of the govern- 
ment to the policy of Washington and Jefferson." Do they mean to say that 
they would sign the fugitive slave law, as Washington did, or admit slave States, 
or purchase slave territory as AVashington and Jefferson did, with their true un- 
derstanding of the meaning of republican constitutional freedom ? If they do, 
what does all their labor amount to ? If they are really ready to be just to the 
»*"'outh and to consider its rights under the constitution, as the illustrious states- 
men were whose names they adopt, why do they make war upon the Democratic 
party which has never wavered in its obedience to the precepts of these great 
men ? If they really " know no north, no south, no east, no west," if they really 
comprehend the obligations of our " common bond " and the sentiments which 
belong to our " common brotherhood," if they really mean to be true to the 
spirit of those men who, regardless of sectional differences, included the thirteea 
States in one household, and opened the door for the admission of others with 
the same magnanimity and wisdom, why do they draw their very sustenance 
from sectional animosity, and bitter savage agitation, and mean and narrow 
restriction? Let them answer if they can — they who talk of " restoring the 
action uf gov'ornmont to the policy of Washington and Jefferson." 



19 

Boar with ine a few mouictus, if yon can, while 1 read tlie sentiments of tho 
leaders of these devotees to tho cause of freedom, these followers of Washington 
and Jefferson. I begin with Wm. Lloyd Garrison. They disown him — hut ho 
says " the vsympathy of every genuine friend of freedom is with the republican 
partt/,'^ ho claims to bo father of the movement, and refuses to be driven from 
his home by his legitimate children. And .^lr. Garrison say.s : — 

"We arc for Distixiox as the preat and first duty to be performed — as tho only issue 
which can prevail against tho slave power, and give liberty to millions in bondage." 

He who proclaims this, and denounces tho constitution as a " covenant with 
death and an agreement with hell " — he belongs to the party of "Washington and 
Jefferson ! 

One of their orators, whose name I will not mention, declares : — 

" Remembering that he was a slaveholder he could spit upon Washington (hisses and 
applause.) The hissers, he said, were slaveholders in spirit, and every one of them 
would enslave him if they had the courage to do it. So near to Faneuil Hall aud Bunker 
Hill, was he not permitted to say that the Scoundbel, George Washington, had enslaved 
his fellowmen ? " 

A most devoted follower of Wa.^hington and Jefferson ! 

What says Mr. Joshua 11. Giddings, that hoary headed traitor and agitator, 
whose very home owes its admission into the Union to the liberality of a slave 
State and to the progressive and equitable policy of the Democratic party ? Ho 
says : — 

" I look forward to the day when there shall be a servile insurrection in the South — when 
the black man, armed with British bayonets and led on by British Officers, shall assert his 
freedom, and wage a war of extermination against his master — u-hcn the torch of the in- 
ceTidiary shall light up the cities and towns of the South, and blot out the last vestige of sla<- 
very ; and though I may not mock at their calamity, nor laugh when their fear cometh, 
yet I shall hail it as the dawn of a political millenium." 

What do you think Washington and JeflFerson would have said to such a 
millenium as this ? 

Horace Greeley, the wet nurse of this whole republican party, says : 
" The Union is not worth supporting in convention with the South." 

Anson Burlingame the enthusiastic northern duellist, the weary and worn 
peripatetic "friend of freedom" declares with true republican blasphemy: — 

"The times demand, and we must have, an anti-slavery constitution, an anti-slavery 
bible, and an anti-slavery God." 

As if the author of creation himself were to govern his high behests by the 
arrogant aggressions of abolitionism. 

Mr. X. P. Banks, the republican amalgamationist, not satisfied with stating 
his willingness to "let the Union slide," uttered, at a reception given him in 
Waltham, the following atrocious sentiment. He said: — 

" I can conceive of a time when this constitution shall not be in existence ; when we 
shall have an absolute military dictatorial government, transmitted from age to age, 
with men at its head, who are made rulers by militarj' commission, or who claim an 
hereditary right to govern those over whom they are placed." 

Do you suppose such a dream as this ever entered the mind of Washington 
or Jefferson ? The very consummation which ilr. Banks forsees, through the 
path to freedom which his republican estimate of the constitution has pre- 
pared, is just the danger which the founders of our republic guarded against. 
There were those who dreamed of •' militaiy dictation" then, as these modern 
tories and federalists and dcspisers of the people do now. And the arrival of 



22 

mocratic princiiDle of the constitution. He has been unwearying in his defence 
of self-government, and stands forth the calm and dignified representative of 
the constitution. Abroad he has maintained the honor of our flag against all 
abuse and all diplomatic adroitness, strong in the honesty of his purpose and 
in the power of republican simplicity. As a man, as a statesman, as a chris- 
tian who knows and dares avow his faith, and as a citizen, he deserves the 
support of a free people, and will give additional honor to that seat which he 
is destined to fill as a successor of WASinNGTON, and Jeferson, and Jackson. 

And of our candidate for the Vice-Presidency, the gallant son of Kentucky, 
John C. Breckinridge, it may be said that he represents all that is vigorous 
and commanding and chivalrous in our young republic. He is indeed worthy 
of that spontaneous nomination which fell upon him at Cincinnati, almost by 
the acclamation of that most imposing convention. I had the honor of listen- 
ing to his maiden speech in Congress. The old Democratic leader in his own 
State had been assailed as a remnant of the past age, a fogy whose work was 
done. The services which G-eneral Butler had rendered his country and his 
party were trodden under foot by the violence of personal ambition, and Ken- 
tucky was looking to see who would defend her heroes when they had no power 
to defend themselves. It was John C. Breckinridge, who stepped forward to 
do his duty to the patriarchs of his party, and to the gray haired statesman 
and warrior ; and as he went on with his speech, old men and young men ga- 
thered about him, borne on by the power of his eloquence, and held by the 
magic of his words, until all men pointed to him as the promise of the De- 
mocratic party. And now he receives his reward, standing as he does by the 
side of the distinguished veteran of his party to be honored by his people. 

In supporting your candidate, forget not your platform. It is the beacon-light 
which guided your fathers and has thus far guided you in your work in the service 
of your country. The old promoatory stands there still breasting the waves of 
faction whieh have beaten against it, unscarred and unharmed. Not a seam marks 
its solid base, around which lie the fragments of parties driven by passion and 
prejudice and blind selfishness to assail its solid structure. High above still 
blazes the light to guide you on when the darkness of treason and sedition set- 
tle down over the land. It is the true director for all constitution-loving men of 
every minor difference of opinion, for all patriots who would save their country 
first, and decide on questions of expediency afterwards, for all who appreciate 
the countless blessings and the glorious promises which belong to our civil organ- 
ization. Religion, humanity, prosperity, freedom, all cling now to the constitu- 
tion, and plead for support and protection against the assaults of those who are 
false to their obligation, false to their country, false to mankind, false to their 
God, through the madness which fanaticism always arouses in the human heart. 
A better cause than that of sect or party now calls upon every good citizen — 
the cause of freedom, the cause of the republic which our fathers founded, the 
cause of self-government, the cause of the people, and the cause of that constitu- 
tion wliich protects our religion, our schools, our commerce, all our industry, and 
has made us thus far a free, a happy, a prosperous people. 



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